


sons of the silent age

by kowboj



Category: Metal Gear
Genre: Established Relationship, M/M, ft raiden being a lightweight, snake & otacon watch anime: the fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:53:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25202764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kowboj/pseuds/kowboj
Summary: Snake, Otacon and their one particular habit throughout the years.
Relationships: Otacon/Solid Snake
Kudos: 35





	sons of the silent age

**Author's Note:**

> there are some references to mgs1 & mgs2 conversations but nothing spoiler heavy i promise

If someone were to ask Otacon what he’d least expected out of this whole partnership he had with Snake, he’d say it was the devotion that came with it.

Of course he’d known that Snake could be truly and deeply dedicated to something, be it person or a cause. It had to be second nature to him, since for half his life he had to swear loyalty to someone - such was the way of a soldier. What Otacon meant by that was how much he was able to do for him, for no reason in particular. And that wasn’t even about him saving his life, although he often thought about it as well, since it proved that he was somehow important to him. Needed, and even wanted, if Otacon dared to think so in some occasional surge of confidence. But it was what Snake would do for him everyday, without any obligation, that mattered the most to him, even more than being rescued from a cruel and pathetic death. And these were the smallest things really: bringing him coffee while he was working, patiently listening when he was explaining some coding method to him, something that he would never understand even if he wanted to, or leaving him yellow sticky notes whenever he went out to buy some smokes, since Snake knew that his sudden disappearance from their apartment really stressed him out sometimes. All of this made Otacon feel really warm inside, but it might as well have been so because of shame - Snake seemed to know everything about him, his irrational fears included (because that’s what he thought his fear of being abandoned was - irrational), but to him, Dave himself was still quite a mystery. Sometimes he saw more of a legend in him, the one that Meryl knew from all these stories, than a man like any other. Otacon had no idea why he felt like that. Maybe it was partly because of how much he looked up to him: even though he was fully conscious of all the flaws he had, Snake was more precious to him than any person he’s ever met in his entire life. Probably also because even though the days went by and they carried on living together, the number of things about Snake that surprised him was only growing bigger, and not smaller how it should. Whether it meant that he was suddenly finding out he kept fifty huskies behind a shed in Alaska, or that many could only dream of having such extensive knowledge of classic literature as he had, Otacon could only expect the unexpected when learning something about him.

And also he could be only happy that such a man of culture like Snake still wanted to spend his time with him, after he literally pissed his pants when they met for the first time. It had to be some kind of gift from heavens for him, a sign that something decided to look after him as a reward for all these years of suffering. If Otacon were more religious, then he’d probably go on his knees and thank every god in existence that Snake stayed in his life even after this cursed incident was over, and stayed incredibly close to add to it all. Perhaps this higher power that seemed to care for him manifested exactly in the form of him, a heavy-smoking supersoldier, looking at how he often took care of his well being, though that thought itself made Hal feel embarrassed. He feared that one day all these j-pop songs he listened to would get to him too much and he’d start calling Snake “his angel”. But he wasn’t that far gone yet, at least he thought so. Hoped so.

One time though, Snake proved that he could be absolutely dedicated to a cause, surprising him more than anyone in the world.

They haven’t even known each other for that long at the time being. Their organization didn’t exist yet, it was still only a concept, or even less than that - more of an intangible and vague part of the future than an actual thing. It was an interesting period of time - one often thinks of such as a turning point. Otacon had thought that after spending months on this forsaken base that was Shadow Moses, starting a new beginning would be impossible without a period of severe depression, and answering the dreaded question of “what should I do with myself now?” would take a lot of time. As it turned out, he couldn’t have been more wrong. You could say that the only thing that stayed the same after fleeing from this awful place was the amount of snow falling, since he still have been in some depths of Alaska, but even this became something less of a nuisance and more of a nice and comforting view when looked at from a window in Snake’s cabin. Because that’s what his life became in his place: comfortable. In his little house, everything started to seem so uncomplicated, easily understandable, that despite the nervous breakdowns that sometimes troubled him - it was difficult not to have them really, leading the kind of life he did - he managed to go by without any bigger existential crisis. He was too busy with paperwork and setting up Philanthropy to even have time for one. And sometimes too absorbed in the fact that his hand fit so well with Snake’s when they were sitting on his scrapped couch, watching a bad sci-fi movie and sharing a bottle of cheap alcohol. Sometimes Otacon put those movies on purposefully, or spy ones, just to hear how Snake couldn't help but comment on their inaccuracy. This is something a man lives for, he’d think then.

But that one particular time it wasn’t this kind of a movie; in fact, there was no movie at all. Everything started inconspicuously, really: Otacon was sure that he’d again pull an all-nighter in the living room, where he’d put up all of his computer stuff. He had found some clues on how the navy was supposedly developing a new Metal Gear model, and he thought it was enough of a serious matter to spend the night researching the topic, even when he really hated putting aside his personal free time and sleep in the name of his work. And he’d surely enough stay up till early morning hours, trying to break into the military database, if it wasn’t for Snake. He was really restless that evening. He couldn’t stay in one place for too long, and more so without getting in his hair. He wouldn’t let him work in peace, no, but sit next to him and have yet another cigarette, only to puff out smoke directly into his ear, fully knowing that nothing could ever infuriate him more than that. 

“You could consider smoking next to the window one day, you know. Or when you go to feed the dogs. Whenever, really, so at least the living room wouldn’t stink like cigarettes. Or that I wouldn’t, especially after I finally took a shower,” he mumbled. 

“Hhghhn…. and here I thought that you got used to it after all this time.”

“Well, I didn’t. And don’t think that I don’t see you’re in a mood for some sort of a deep conversation, but I have to disappoint you. I don’t have time for it! Can’t you see that I’m working? Dave, we really need that data, and we need to get it as soon as possible,” he said, but Snake was not listening to him at all. He only puffed out a cloud of smoke in his face again. “Stop doing that, it’s disgusting! You’re insufferable… come on, just give me this one day and tomorrow I’ll be at your service only”.

“And now that’s a good offer. Tomorrow starts in exactly thirteen minutes, so I think you should start getting ready”.

“Snake? If that was supposed to be funny, it really wasn’t. And I hope you weren’t aiming for suggestive either, because if you were, then it would be even less so. Seriously, how can you say things like that? They sound even worse face to face than when you say them via codec…"

“And to whom exactly do I say things like that?”

“I don’t know, to like, everyone? To every single person ever?”

“Now you're exaggerating. We both know that my brilliant sense of humor is one of the things that you love me so much for, isn't it,” he put out his cigarette, wrapping an arm around Otacon and ignoring how he said “love?!” under his breath. “You’re no better than me anyway, mister ‘referencing some, I don’t know, dumb Chinese cartoons in the first five minutes after you meet a person’”.

Otacon threw his arm off his shoulder, getting a little red in the face. “They're not Chinese... And do you really have to remind me I did that all the damn time? Can’t you let the past stay the past? Seriously, this is a low blow… In the end it doesn’t even matter that I did that, you’re still sitting here with me-”

“Yeah, I am, this is my own house.”

“- and what’s wrong with having various interests!”

“Well… nothing, but isn’t it something more for... kids half your age?”

“You know what. Let’s have this conversation again next time you’ll be sitting in a cardboard box. Then we’ll talk like a pair of serious, mentally stable adults.”

“Geez, Hal, what are you being so passive-agressive for…” he said and his voice turned so.. soft, in a way that was almost unnatural for him. “I’m only joking here. Seems like working that hard really got to you. You could use a massage, you know. Or a free day, at least.”

“Perhaps,” he sighed, still somewhat irritated. His partner was probably right, at least about the massage part - his shoulders did feel kind of stiff, as a result of sitting in the same position for god knows how many hours. “A fight with your own creation… is not one of the easiest, but I have to try to win it regardless.” he said finally. “But don’t think that I don’t know why you keep me from working on cracking the government’s security codes. Because then we’ll have the information, and you’ll have a job to do, having to sneak heaven knows where. And you can’t deny that I’m right when I say you really don’t want to do this. I can’t blame you for not wanting to, though.”

And with these words Hal effectively killed of this entire conversation, since there was no reply. He briefly wondered if he sounded too harsh - Snake suddenly couldn’t decide whether to look at him or the hole in the carpet that he didn’t notice before.

“I know I said what I said,” he began after a while, since while Otacon thought he will get annoyed at him, but finally leave him alone, he was simply looking for another topic to discuss. Well. “...but I’m not exactly opposed to doing that…”

“Oh yeah? Wait… what? What exactly are you talking about?” At this point Hal had no idea what this conversation was about, but who could blame him for that?

“Well, since this morning I’ve been thinking that… I could watch one of these cartoons of yours, Hal.”

Otacon let out a sound that could be qualified as something between loudly choking on air and the most sincere exclamation of surprise. “You could… do what?”

“I know you heard me right. I want to see for myself why you like them so damn much.”

“Ha, you still think you’re so funny,” Otacon laughed, but it sounded really awkward and he felt a wave of embarrassment go through him. The concept of watching anime, with Snake of all people, seemed too bizarre to him to even try describing it. Although a part of him was overjoyed that Snake was willing to watch even one episode, another one was absolutely horrified because of the very same thing. Every anime had its own rights, and he feared that they might not be… suited to his tastes at all. He still felt like the first part would win over the other in no time.

“What did you get all red for all of a sudden… there must be something else in these cartoons than giant robots, huh?" Otacon only noticed that Snake was still saying something, and when he realized what his partner was getting at, he could only sigh loudly.

“Well, it’s not hard to find ones of the kind you think of…”

“And it’s them you like the most?”

“No comment.... You’d be surprised, Dave, since there’s so much more to anime than you realize. The selection is practically infinite, and it’s like with movies or tv series; there’s something for everyone. You want a horror story? No problem. Action with really buff guys? There’s definitely too many of those. Some series are, believe me or not, even deep! It’s easy to forget that what you’re watching is animated, really.”

“And what about the ones with giant robots?”

“You don’t have enough of machines that seem intent on killing you? Come on, there’s a thousand of better things to watch…”

In fact, as it’s easy to guess, it was his favourite genre. Or used to be, at least, cause now when he was getting really sick when he thought about how they inspired him to create his own mecha-like invention and allow it to be turned into a weapon of mass destruction. He didn’t have it in himself to watch something like Evangelion with Snake anyway. He wasn’t strong enough to do that. 

“But you know what? I think I know something we could watch,” he said after a while, looking at Snake, who started playing with the hem of his fluffy sweater. “Remember how you said we should take a trip to Jupiter?” Snake didn’t really laugh at that, but smiled and nodded anyway. “I think it’s the first time you ever referenced something that happened that day voluntarily, and not me. But, yeah, ‘course I do.”

“Well, what do you say we do it now?”

And this is how Otacon abandoned his work in the name of watching one of the most legendary series in the world, one that changed how animation was perceived and continues to inspire creators even to this day.

At least that’s the kind of speech he gave to Snake during the first minute of an episode, forgetting that telling what Cowboy Bebop was even about might have been useful to him. Well, in his opinion, emphasising how memorable the music and the characters were was equally important to the plot itself. The rest could come along later anyway.

And besides that, truthfully speaking, he was kind of nervous, finding himself in a situation that he didn’t dare think would ever happen in reality, so he was looking at Snake all the time, waiting for any expression of disapproval to appear on his face, or god forbid one of disgust with him or his interests. But the only thing he found was a completely neutral look on him, or at least he hoped it was neutral. He wasn’t very good at reading people. One time though, he even heard not only himself ranting about the animation in the nineties but also Snake commenting on something that happened, muttering “Is this how Ocelot sees himself?” after Spike jumped out of his disguise to spin his gun and point it at his enemy of the episode. Frankly, Otacon could not believe his ears and barely recovered after that, and even more so with the fact that as the episodes went by, Snake’s interest in the series only went up. At one point, when Otacon wanted to say something, he even put a finger to his mouth to silence him, not even taking his eyes off the screen. Hal couldn’t believe that, thinking scenes like that only happened in dumb teenage movies, but here they were. And the only thing that Snake said after a while was that he never liked jazz music, but this opening was making him change his mind.

And Hal took the fact that for the next couple of evenings Snake would ask him if they will finish watching “this funky cowboy man” as his biggest personal achievement. To be honest, he shouldn’t have been this surprised that he liked this series though, looking at how many hours they’d spent on watching all these poorly made sci-fi movies. At least this was something good that they got round to watching for once. Unfortunately, even though they have watched so many episodes already, Hal’s anxiety did not dissipate, but only found itself another source. Hal wasn’t afraid that putting on another episode would be cringy of him anymore, but Spike Spiegel started being dangerously similar to Snake. Not in the way he looked, but in the way he was seemingly calm until he got into the heat of a battle and got this certain glint in his eyes, starting to really enjoy himself. Or the stance he had while pointing his gun. How he took every occasion just to have a smoke. Perhaps Otacon was reading too much into this, but he couldn’t help doing that. That’s just how it was for him, he was too infatuated not to have his every thought and idea come back to Snake at some point. But the situations it sometimes generated were enough to make him put his head in his hands in embarrassment just at the sheer thought of them.

For example: episode 26, the credit rolls are playing, and Otacon tries to stop his teardrops from falling, because he’s a self-respecting, adult man that does not cry watching anime, but ultimately fails and lets out a really saddening sob.

“So, if you knew what was going to happen from the very beginning, then why are you so upset now?” Snake wasn’t exactly laughing in his face, but Otacon just knew that he was trying really hard not to.

“And how about you? Didn’t such an ending move you? Like, at all? And here I thought you enjoyed the whole thing…”

“Well, I did… it was not bad, for a cartoon,” he admitted, looking at how Otacon internally fought with himself whether to try arguing that it wasn't just a cartoon or rather burst with joy that he called it not bad. “I can even understand why you see so much in them, but to have such a breakdown over this? Come on, Hal, you didn’t cry this much even when one of the dogs h-”

“But that’s a completely different situation! Stop acting as if a movie has never moved you. Besides, you’d never understand that-” and he stopped here, not exactly sure if he wanted to share all of his reflections, since some of them were, shortly speaking, embarrassing and upsetting.

“Understand what…?”

“Nevermind…,” he hoped that Snake wouldn’t continue the topic, because in situations like this he never did, but apparently this time his mind changed the way he handled things. “It’s not something worth talking about.”

“You, asking me whether love can, and I’m quoting, bloom on a battlefield? After knowing me for three hours? Are suddenly afraid of saying what’s on your mind? That’s disappointing…”

“Will you ever stop reminding me of every single thing I said that day? Seriously, we should set a rule for you to stop doing that. If you’ll say something like that once more I swear I’ll stop talking to you.”

“But I still won’t stop… you know, it reminds me of the two most interesting hours in my entire life.”

“A bastard. That’s the only thing you are,” he groaned, but even seeing Snake’s unapologetic expression he couldn’t bring himself to really be angry. “Actually, the thing is, that… well. Watching this I felt like I was watching you, on a mission. And I really don’t even want to imagine that, but I can see that. How you do the same, one gesture and… it’s the end. Just like in the series..”

“Well, that could have been me even before we met.”

“Dave, that’s not the point! What I mean is… I wouldn’t bear looking at that happening. You know that without you I’m nothing…. well, the whole world is as well, for what you do for it,” he added, suddenly feeling dumb for saying such a confession out loud.

“If a The Beatles quote is going to appear on screen after my death too, no matter how fitting it is, then I’m not going to die at all. But seriously, don’t think about something like that now. One ambiguously bad ending is enough for one evening." 

Otacon knew that Snake definitely preferred to say something else instead of addressing his words more elaborately, since the answer closest to truth, that he could share his fate with Spike relatively soon if something was to go wrong on his next mission, was not a thing he wanted to hear. And definitely not something a person wanted to admit, especially out loud. So the only thing that Hal could do was accept Snake’s small smile and a kiss to his neck. “You still haven’t told me what do you think of the ending,” he whispered into his ear then, curling a finger into his hair.

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

It would seem that it was a one in a lifetime situation, but apparently, there were more evenings with the theme of ‘watching anime cult classics with a legendary super soldier’ than this one. Otacon had no idea why Snake was doing this. Was it because of this limitless devotion of his? Or testing patience in order to build his own character? Perhaps so he would shut up about them if Snake watched some with him and then have a piece of quiet? His personality didn’t let him think it was because when watching something that Otacon cared about so deeply, he also started to think of it with sympathy, even if it was objectively bad.

In any way, Otacon carved Snake into some kind of an eastern animation connoisseur, showing him only the most critically acclaimed classics. They never talked too much about them afterwards though, but Otacon assumed it was for the best. He still wasn’t ready for a deep talk about, for instance, Evangelion, although they did watch it at some point. 

Even more surprising was the fact that they continued watching all these shows even as all the years, traumatic experiences (2007, what a year it was) and their ever-changing apartments went by.

So it was no wonder that one time they ended up watching Akira in the tiny apartment they had rented for the time being, in the great city of New York. Perhaps calling this stinky hole they found “an apartment” was like making huge overstatement, but at least it was a place they could call their own for a while, and not just another hotel room. And it added a certain quality to their movie showing - in no other place a movie about teenage degenerates beating the hell out of each other would look as good as in a surrounding of wallpaper peeling of the walls and a stitched together carpet thrown in the middle of the floor to hide the huge hole that was under it. And maybe they could have told more about the movie itself instead of how well it looked in their room, if it wasn’t for the quiet but constant knocking to their door. That surely was distracting.

One could think that something like knocking could seem alarming to men with occupation such as theirs, but the sort of people they tried to avoid rarely knocked and went straight to breaking through the door instead, so Otacon assured Snake that he didn’t have to take out the gun he kept hidden under the couch and went to open the it. In the peephole he saw no other person than Raiden.

“Raiden?” he asked therefore. This made Snake, who was still sitting on the couch, turn around, but Otacon didn’t see that. He was looking at Raiden only, who in all honesty looked awful: massive bags under his eyes, cheeks bluish as if he got into a fight a day or two before, and it looked like he put on clothes that he took straight out of the washing machine, since it definitely didn’t rain that evening and they were creased and looking kind of wet. Hearing his own name he tried to smile, but that only made him look more miserable.

“Uh, yeah, hey. Mei Ling gave me the address,” he said, but his tone revealed he was nervous. That totally didn’t fit his personality. “Can I step in for a while?”

“Oh, yeah, of course! You don’t even have to ask. But why didn’t you just ask us for the address via codec?”

“It would lack the element of surprise..?” In reality, he didn’t think of doing that at all.

“Well, you’re probably right. But did something happen?”

“No offence, but it sure looks like it,” said Snake, before he even greeted their guest and came to the door.

“Snake!” in that moment Raiden only noticed that Snake was here, and was pretty surprised, at least until he said something like oh yeah, partners, under his breath and there was no more traces of surprise on his face.

“So, what brings you to our humble apartment?”

“Yeah, to be honest something did happen,” Raiden started, but he didn’t know if he should look at Otacon or Snake while speaking, so he decided to set his eyes on the painting past them, that was left by the past tenant. It was a truly hideous picture, probably supposed to be a picturesque landscape, but the author seemed to succeed in making the opposite of it. “I got into an argument with Rose. And this time it’s a serious one… you remember her, right? Well, she was always a little hot-headed, but I had no idea she had it in her to be this… harsh. And I really don’t want to look at her after today, but that’s a little difficult to do, since now we live together and all. So I went out, but didn’t want to walk around the city for no reason, that was making me feel dumb, so I thought I could check out what you’re doing right now in this organization of yours. And well, here I am.”

‘Well, to be honest we aren’t doing much yet, or at least we’re not searching for information well enough,” Otacon said. “Do you perhaps want something to drink? A tea, maybe?” he asked when they were stepping further into the living room, but Raiden declined. He was looking round the apartment, but said nothing. Probably out of politeness, because there was nothing nice to say about it.

“Oh… you were watching something? And I interrupted you,” he started looking at the tv on the table. “What movie is it?”

Otacon and Snake looked at each other. Snake’s expression could be read as stone-like by a regular spectator, but after all these years Otacon knew he was barely containing his laughter. This guy. “Well, it’s nothing interesting in particular,” he replied. “It’s Japanese, you know? We put it on for a second, out of pure curiosity.”

“But I can see on the bar that you’ve seen almost an hour of it,” Raiden narrowed his eyes for a while and it was a pathetic sight really, since his eyes were so baggy and sickly purplish, but a moment later the look on his face changed completely. “You say it’s Japanese?”

“...maybe? Yeah?”

“You know, I’ve been watching a lot of Japanese movies lately! The old ones, about samurais. I don’t know how to describe it, but after I had to fight using their kind of blade I just.. found them fascinating. There is something special in all these swords and schools of fighting…”

“But Raiden? I’m afraid this movie has nothing to do with samurais…”

“Oh yeah? It’s alright, you can carry on watching it,” he thought he sounded unfazed, but it was obvious that he was a bit disappointed. “I came in unprompted anyway.”

“You should play the movie from the beginning, Hal,” declared Snake, who’s just come back to the couch with a very desired object, especially during awkward movie nights: a six pack of beer, the cheap but high percentage type. Otacon cast him an angry stare, but before he could reply to that, Raiden was already answering.

“If you want to, then yeah, would be nice.”  
And so they all sat on the tattered couch, each with a can of beer in hand, Raiden sitting in the middle included, after claiming his abstinence for exactly eleven seconds and then changing his mind, and the first moments of the legendary Akira (1988) were playing in front of them.

“Wait, it’s animated?!” Raiden said, or rather exclaimed loudly, to which Snake raised his can in toast, grinning. “You don’t seem the type that likes watching such things… unless?” 

Otacon distinctly felt Raiden’s eyes on him while he was saying that and started regretting this surge of hospitality he had a moment ago. He could have been in the middle of the movie by now, looking at how this sad teenager slowly becomes a god of his own artificially created universe, and after that spend some real high quality time with Snake. But no, he had to let him in and now listen to comments like this. He took a sip of his beer to try to concentrate on something else.

“You have to get to know culture of all places in the world, don’t you think? No matter in what form it comes, even animation,” Snake stated, and he was right. Bless the kind soul of this truly beautiful man, Otacon thought.

“Well, maybe you’re right,” Raiden still had to see him as some sort of authority, since he considered this statement really seriously. “But still, it’s a funny sight - you, watching a cartoon. You destroy gigantic, death bringing machines, and all of that, and after hours you do… this. Interesting..”

For a while they were all silent, judging each other. Or at least Otacon was judging Raiden and vice versa, because Raiden wouldn’t dare to judge Snake when he idolized him so. At some point he leaned in slightly, looking with distaste at how a policeman shot a dog on the street (“this was supposed to be a cartoon..”), and the other men took it as a chance to look at each other through his head. “Wait… this crouching old man is supposed to be a kid? And what is he even doing,” apparently a ten year old breaking windows in Tokyo with his psychic powers was too much for poor Raiden. Either he didn’t know how to have fun or this argument with his girlfriend took all the life out of him. 

“Can’t you at least appreciate how well made the animation is? Or this soundtrack,” Otacon muttered, still irritated, especially with how Raiden didn’t even reply. “You should drink a little, loosen up a bit…”

“Oh, right,” he looked at the can in his hands, while completely ignoring the iconic gang war scene that was currently in the movie (no comment), and took a sip of his beer. Even this little sip was apparently too big though, because he immediately thought to himself that he had never tasted anything as bad as this. He decided drinking an entire glass of vodka at one go had to be more pleasant than that. 

That was his initial thought, but he was in all honesty exaggerating. But well, he wasn’t exactly the biggest fan of drinks with a percentage at this point in his life, not yet. That came slightly later for himf. At least this beer was something different than the instant coffee that Rose bought, because he'd drunk like three of them before he went out, so Raiden drank more.

“Okay, so now I don’t get anything at all,” he declared. “How come a collision with an aging ten year old was supposed to give him psychic powers?!”

“Didn’t you pay any attention to the movie?” Otacon rolled his eyes at him, but at some point Raiden’s behaviour stopped irritating him and now he found it to be rather entertaining. He even thought that he should come visit them more often.

“But they didn’t explain it at all!”

“Well, some things just work and that’s it. It’s the law of science-fiction that they just do. They wouldn’t have the time to explain everything in a movie that is two hours long anyway.”

“Then they could have made another movie.”

“Well, actually, it’s based on a manga…”

“A manga…?”

“... that is much longer and more complicated than this movie is. So they did in fact explain it somewhere. Read it if you really want to know how it works,” he winced a little while saying that, shooting Snake a look that said “I change my mind, I don’t want to do this anymore”, but he only winked at him in response. What kind of answer was that even supposed to be?

The further into the movie they got, the more questions Raiden had about the plot, more or less one at a minute and with that he unintentionally revealed his interest in the movie. At least, until the alcohol got to him a bit and his face started to get red. Seemed like he had a real low tolerance to it, if he was starting to act like this barely having drank half of his beer. Not to mention that by the time he was finishing it, none of what he was saying had any sense anymore.

“Hey, I know this scene!” he blabbered, seeing Tetsuo undergo a set of weird experiments and tests in a laboratory. “I saw it in a music video on MTV. But Kanye West was sitting inside this tube instead of this guy… what was his name? ...Akira? Like in the title?”

But no one seemed to have the energy to reply to this. Perhaps it was because Snake efficiently turned Otacon’s attention to his hand in his hair after he stretched his arm over Raiden’s head. They were acting like a dumb teenagers trying to flirt with each other, true, but it had a charm to it. What a shame this charm was lost somewhere when Raiden got a hiccup that even a veteran of all kinds of liquor could envy. 

“Do you think he’ll be okay?” Otacon asked, looking at him.

”Yeah. He’ll be terribly hungover at worst. If it’s possible after two cans of beer.”

“Hey! Why are you talking as if I weren’t here…,” somewhere in the middle of this sentence Raiden slid off the couch onto the floor, but he seemed comfortable enough not to comment on it.

“Dave, look, this one’s a good scene, you have to watch it,” Otacon brought their attention back to the screen, ignoring how Raiden asks Dave? and has no idea who’s that. He can’t miss the moment where this poor teenager’s hand turns into a monstrous pile of flesh and swallows up his girlfriend.

“Hhghhn… it is a good one…”

Somehow they really got back into the movie, but it was hard not to: Tetsuo's been practically a god for the last 25 minutes and Kaneda’s beautiful, shiny red motorcycle was truly attention grabbing. And Snake has just realized that Hal used to have a hoodie with the same print as the main character’s jacket. One time, when they had still lived in Alaska, he'd accidentally put it on fire when messing with some wires. That was quite spectacular of him, he had to admit, although after that this hoodie could have been used as nothing else but a rag to clean the house.

His train of thought was disrupted by a loud thud and he was about to get annoyed that the people who live in the apartment under them are having a fight again, but it was only Raiden fully collapsing onto the floor. Thank god, that meant he could still get a good night of sleep.

“I lack the qualifications… to exercise free will,” he breathed, losing contact with the world around him and lying on this cold and a bit gross floor. After that, he fell asleep. Or at least it seemed so; if one thing was sure, it was that he was really far gone.

“The things he says sometimes are at least mildly concerning. I wonder what he had to live through to be like that,” Otacon looked at Snake. “I kinda feel sorry for him, to be honest.”

“Yeah… but he’s a nice kid anyway. What should we do with him, though?”

A sleeping man on your floor truly could be a bit problematic, but they decided to take care of this after the movie was over, since they had to watch the ending. And a good one it was.

“How about we lay him on the couch? Although it would be funny if he slept through the entire night on the floor. A bit cruel though. And maybe we should leave him some bucket if he gets sick. I don’t want to scrub the floor after him if he does...”

Snake already agreed wordlessly with the first statement and was already putting him onto the couch, joking it would be funny if he woke up still being in his hands, while Otacon went to search for some blankets.

“This is how it would look if we had a son,” Snake said after Otacon came back. He snorted.

“You say you’d be so calm and content seeing your son drunk and asleep on the floor?”

“Well, everyone has better and worse moments in their life,” he smiled, putting an arm around Hal. “Let’s leave him and let him sleep, don’t you think? Just because he's fallen asleep doesn’t mean the night’s over for us too…”

“Stop talking like that! It makes us sound as if we really were his parents or something. And he’s not even much younger than the both of us, it’s weird!

“Perhaps… but seeing how he acts, I still think next time we should play him some anime meant for children, don’t you think?”

"If there will ever be a next time..." 

And with that they turned the lights off.

**Author's Note:**

> english language..... i don't know her


End file.
